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Five years ago,<\/span> a Nevada state senator helped kill a crypto tycoon\u2019s vision of a blockchain city in the Reno desert. Now, that lawmaker is running for higher office, and the crypto mogul is bankrolling her primary opponent to the tune of millions.<\/p>\n The battle playing out in the state attorney general\u2019s race is one example of many of the crypto sector trying to elect industry-friendly officials. In Nevada, it\u2019s also a story of an eccentric multimillionaire whose money threatens the political ascent of a woman who helped deny his dream.<\/p>\n The spending by crypto entrepreneur Jeffrey Berns is \u201cmeaningful money, especially at this early stage in the primary,\u201d said Kenneth Miller, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. \u201cAnd we don\u2019t know if this only represents an initial investment and will be followed up by more.\u201d<\/p>\n Berns has donated at least $2.5 million since 2023 to a political action committee controlled by Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine, who is running for attorney general against state Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro.<\/p>\n That is more than twice the $1.2 million that Conine received from individual donors to his personal campaign account over the same period.<\/p>\n After receiving money from Berns, Conine\u2019s PAC in turn donated more than $1.8 million to a newly created campaign outfit called Safe and Strong Nevada PAC, which rolled out a website and video advertisement<\/a> attacking Cannizzaro.<\/p>\n Both Cannizzaro and Conine are Democrats on the June 9 primary ballot. They have settled on similar campaign themes as fighters who will take on President Donald Trump \u2014 a reliable message in an election year with an energized Democratic base.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not typical for a campaign to be almost entirely propped up by one wealthy megadonor.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Neither candidate has made cryptocurrencies a focus of their campaigns. Yet Berns\u2019s donations make him by far the largest donor to Conine\u2019s campaign organizations. Miller, the political science professor, said the scale of Berns\u2019s donations reflected a larger trend.<\/p>\n \u201cAll semblance of constraints on political donations have eroded away in the past couple decades, and the amount of money it takes to be impactful in a Nevada primary election is well within reach for a lot of wealthy individuals,\u201d he said. \u201cCampaigns around the country often have one or two super PACs involved that are funded by one or just a handful of people. It is not typical for a campaign to be almost entirely propped up by one wealthy megadonor, but it does happen sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n While Berns did not respond to a request for comment on why he is intervening in the race, he has a tangled history with Cannizzaro. Five years ago, she helped kill his vision of building what his company called a \u201csmart city\u201d near Reno.<\/p>\n Berns was formerly a California plaintiff\u2019s lawyer who won huge settlements<\/a> taking on the banking industry. He was also an early investor in the Ether token, a leading competitor to bitcoin.<\/p>\n His multiplying fortune allowed him buy waterfront properties in ritzy destinations including Lake Tahoe, where he bought and sold a $47.5 million mansion<\/a>, and Turks and Caicos, where he recently listed for sale at $35 million a beachfront property that was once featured<\/a> on the Netflix reality dating show \u201cToo Hot to Handle.\u201d<\/p>\n He also founded a company called Blockchains, which in 2018 purchased 67,000 acres of land in Storey County in northern Nevada near the Tesla \u201cGigafactory\u201d for the sum of $170 million.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Storey County has flexible development rules, but not flexible enough for Berns. Instead, he and his company wanted to build an entire city running on blockchain that operated independently from the county.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to create a place where we can rethink things. Where we can democratize democracy,\u201d Berns told the BBC.<\/a><\/p>\n Berns won the support of a critical backer: then-Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat who endorsed the idea<\/a> in his 2021 State of the State address.<\/p>\n Opponents noted that Berns had donated tens of thousands of dollars to Sisolak\u00a0and smelled an end-run around regular democratic governance. They also raised concerns about more mundane issues such as lost tax revenue<\/a> and water rights.<\/p>\n The idea would have needed approval from the Nevada Legislature. Berns\u2019s push for legislative approval was damaged by the revelation that he was being sued\u00a0by his children\u2019s nanny<\/a> for allegedly trying to force her into a sexual tryst with him and his wife. Berns said the plaintiff was a disgruntled former employee, and he settled the case<\/a> the next year without admitting wrongdoing, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal.<\/p>\n Despite Sisolak\u2019s support, the smart city idea was ultimately doomed to die the bureaucratic death of a study committee. One of the key players who helped kill the proposal was Cannizzaro, the state\u2019s first female Senate majority leader.<\/p>\n A lobbyist involved in the discussions confirmed that Cannizzaro was instrumental in shelving the idea. In a statement, her campaign also said that she opposed the idea.<\/p>\n \u201cLike nearly all of her legislative colleagues in both parties, Majority Leader Cannizzaro was extremely skeptical of the idea of letting private corporations run their own governments and siphon off millions of taxpayers\u2019 dollars,\u201d said Peter Koltak, a campaign spokesperson. \u201cUltimately, she informed the Governor\u2019s staff and the bill\u2019s supporters that there wouldn\u2019t be legislative support for the concept.\u201d<\/p>\n Berns was so disappointed by the process that his company pulled out of the study process,<\/a> prompting its staff to declare that there was no point in exploring the idea further.<\/p>\n While Berns vastly expanded his wealth by investing in cryptocurrency, he is not a household name in the industry. Many of the wealthiest crypto companies and venture capital firms have backed a national super PAC called Fairshake that has hundreds of millions<\/a> to spend on federal elections<\/a>. Berns has not donated to that effort, federal campaign finance records show.<\/p>\n Instead, he has focused his giving on Nevada, supporting politicians on both sides of the aisle. Berns gave $5,000 to Republican Gov. Joseph Lombardo in 2024 and $250,000 to the Democratic Party of Washoe County in 2022, campaign finance records show. He also gave $5,000 to Cannizzaro in 2020 before the smart city proposal died in the legislature.<\/p>\n Despite the pushback the smart city proposal drew, it has not made him a particularly controversial donor.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Las Vegas, not a month goes by without an\u00a0artist\u2019s rendering of a proposed resort, arena, or other project popping up,\u201d said Miller. \u201cSome of them happen, and many of them don\u2019t. I don\u2019t expect that the smart city proposal left much of an impression on many Nevada voters.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\nSpending Big<\/h2>\n
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A Dream Denied<\/h2>\n
Berns Shifts Gears<\/h2>\n